If you were someone outside yourself looking at the person you are now, if you knew how badly “you” were suffering and knew what words & actions, if any, could ease the pain, if you knew “your” mind so well that you wouldn’t waste a minute doing the useless things that others try unsuccessfully, and most importantly if you really cared about “you” and would never give up, would you be able to save “you”?
You would always know exactly what to say. You would always understand exactly what’s going on. You would know exactly what would bring out a smile, a laugh, or that rare stuff called the will to live. I bet it would be pretty easy for any of you to be your own guardian angel.
Well doesn’t that show you how tragic the world is for each of us? The problem is not that we’re beyond fixing. The problem is that nobody knows how to do it.
8 comments
the real problem is that when you figure out exactly what it would take, everyone tells you it’s wrong, or that you expect too much, or that you’ll just have to settle for less, and learn to love it… and that you just have to keep going, because you just have to, and if that’s not enough, then the guilt trips start coming.
They want you to be okay without changing anything on their part, and without putting any effort into what you have discovered are the necessary solutions. But then they want to complain, when you stop talking to people who don’t want to listen or cooperate (which is just about everyone).
But no, i wouldn’t be able to save myself. I don’t have what it takes to save me. Adding another “me,” to externally influence myself, isn’t going to make me have any of what i already lack, because another me would just be another me, and not any better than the original. Two of me would be in the same problems as just one of me, but with twice the requirement for solutions that can’t be accessed, and/or don’t exist.
I’m pretty sure I could not.
Nope. I live with chronic physical pain and when I try and help people with their chronic pain I have to bite my lip to not mentioned suicide as a solution. No way I could sav myself.
No way. (I don’t think there is enough space here to fit all my reasons, I could say I don’t have the tools to repair me, the knowledge to hunt something down, or resources within reach)
Some people call it self-doubt. I call it just not being able to do the impossible.
If I were someone outside myself looking at the person I am now, I’d take myself on a walk to find a really tall building and give myself a good shove.
i think this is a really good question. i always think in these terms. life is not only about will to live its a whole interconnected mess. nothing goes without consequences. but another thing is that if you go really deep into anything other things start burning away. if you go deep into one part of your suffering all other sufferings will burn away.
if depression means that you believe that nothing will work out, then short of replacing that depressive ‘subroutine’, what chances are there ?
i keep obsessing about the past, about all the discrete events where had i acted differently, my life would have turned out fine
why, didn’t i act differently ?
1)depression, believing that in the long run, nothing would work out, so better self-sabotage at an earlier stage, even if it’s been extremely costly emotionally
2)need to suffer
3)some combination of the two
i’m stuck with no exit